Latest Smoke and Mirrors

According to a study appearing in this month's British Journal of Pyschiatry, smoking by pregnant women can lead to anti-social behavior -- and ADHD, which doesn't actually exist -- in kids. According to a BBC report on the pregnancy-and-smoking report:

Women who smoke in pregnancy may raise the risk of their child displaying anti-social behaviour, researchers say.

There was a "small but significant" link between maternal smoking and both unruly behaviour and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, they said.

The average symptom scores for both increased with the number of cigarettes the mother had smoked while pregnant, the study of 1,896 twins found. [...]

[Professor Eric Taylor] said it was possible that the mothers were transmitting "anti-social behaviour" genes to their children.

It will surprise no one that I think this research amounts to nothing more than a heap of horseshit. Smoking during pregnancy is harmful to kids, to be sure. The thing is that everyone knows this. Everyone. Which means that the expectant mothers who choose to smoke while they're pregnant are imbeciles to begin with. These mothers aren't genetically pre-disposed to anything any more than their behavior (smoking) is genetically pre-disposing their kids to any sort of behavior. Their "anti-social behaviour" is being transmitted to their kids post-partum onward in the form of their own disregard for their children.

Does this mistreatment suddenly end just because nine months have passed and the kids have left the womb? Of course not. What's the evidence that a parent who didn't give a shit about their unborn kids' (apostrophe comes after the "s" since we're talking about twins here) health will suddenly become a good, responsible parent just because their kids have been born? There isn't any, of course.

There's a term for all of this, and it's called bad parenting. (Well, bad research too.) And bad parenting -- sure enough -- is a social behavior that often leads to anti-social behavior in kids.